Gospel Base Aplogetics

I have been working on something for some time, and I had an opportunity to try it out the other day. I want to share the idea (in a limited way) and suggest a new approach to apologetics that I think is better than anything I have seen (I am not trying to blow my own horn, I stole the idea from a great book called the Bible).

The idea is simple, perhaps so simple it has been overlooked by a lot of people. It starts with the gospel as a story. This is not new, there are many people, groups, and organizations that have begun to share the gospel in a narrative way. I want to thank them, they have done me a favor. The gospel is the primary story and message of the church. It is laid out in all of the Bible!! It starts at the beginning and ends, (you guessed it) at the end. In other words the gospel story starts with creation and ends with a brand new creation (new heavens and earth).

As I began to process the story it seemed to me there was another aspect of the gospel story that was missing. It was a more complete understanding of who God is. I know this sounds like it would take an hour just to explain the story, but what if we were able to tell the gospel story in a narrative way and still focus on the primary characteristics of who God is?

This is where the apologetics part comes in. Over the last several decades apologetics focused on good solid research, numbers of manuscripts, archaeological finds, etc... Thanks to amazing guys like Josh McDowel, Norman Geisler, J.P. Morland and others we have had a wealth of important information to help us defend and proclaim the good news. Unfortunately many of these guys are, well, smarter than the rest of us. They have devoted their lives to studying these things. For the rest of us we need something a little simpler. In my experience most people don't really want empirical evidence as much as they want good answers to the most obvious philosophical questions in life. Above all people want to understand a loving God who allows evil in the world.

Most of the time people don't accept the free gift of salvation because they don't understand who God is. They don't understand the gospel as a complete story. So how does this work??

I don't want to give this away, because I am considering publishing the idea in book form and possibly in a video curriculum form as well. What if you could share the gospel story (an over view of the whole thing) using characteristics of God (like Justice, love, mercy, righteousness, etc...) in five minutes? What if at the same time you did this you were able to answer the most common questions people have by simply going back to the story and the characteristics of God?

That is the general concept. I did this with my neighbor just two weeks ago. He was going through a tough time so he knocked on my door. He interrupted my dinner plans with my family and then took my ear for the next hour. I shared the gospel with him as the answer to the questions he had. He asked the most common question about evil and a loving God with the precursor that no one had been able to answer that question in a satisfactory manner. I went back to the gospel story and the characteristics of God and explained why evil things happen. He looked at me in amazement and said, "no one has been able to answer that question, until now!"

The Greatest Nation and The Christian Faith

I love the U.S. I believe it is the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet apart from perhaps the nation of Israel when it was a true theocracy. I want to hang on to this nation as it was established as long as I can. Still I am under no illusions. This great nation will likely not be great forever. Its greatness may last another 5 years or maybe another 500 years. However long it lasts I will enjoy it. But what of my faith? Is my faith connected to my country? Should it be?

Sometimes I struggle with this, there is definitely some dissonance regarding my citizenship in the U.S. and the kingdom of God. I love Jesus first and foremost, but I find myself wanting to engage in political conversations more than spiritual ones. Maybe this is because I think politics are easier to talk about than spiritual things. I often find myself dealing with this conflict between my role as a pastor and my political convictions. In reality the two cannot be completely separated.

I don't stand up and preach politics even during presidential elections. A lot of the times I avoid making any kind of statements from the pulpit. Still there are a lot of political issues that should be heavily influenced by the convictions of our faith and a Biblical worldview. I don't want those who tend to have more liberal political views to be offended because my views tend to be more conservative. Yet it is hard for me to understand how people who believe and value God's word can come to conclusions that are different from mine (in certain areas).

So what am I to do? I don't know. I guess I will continue to stumble along trying to be mindful of what is appropriate in different situations. I will probably stick my foot in my mouth a few times, but oh well.

Basic Economics

I never took an economics course in school, not in high school and not in college. Still, I managed to understand what the economy was all about. Basically your provide a service or good and you get paid based on what the market says your service or product is worth. This seems so basic, yet so many students are graduating from high school without this basic understanding.

In my part time job at caribou coffee I work with young kids ranging from 16-22. Most of them seem to think the job they have been hired to do is somehow owed to them. This is a significant problem in our culture there are too many students who think they are some how "above" working at McDonald's or some other fast food joint. The ones that do work there don't seem to have a work ethic that has any kind of integrity. They punch in before they are ready to work and they punch out 10 minutes after they are finished with work. Once punched in they insist on standing around until someone tells them to do something.

I don't know if there is a point to this entry outside of complaining. Thanks for reading.